'The Inheritors' by William Golding

Another way of exploring the problems of Neanderthal psychology is to look at the work of other authors that have ploughed this particular furrow before. Joseph Carroll, a University teacher from Missouri, provides a powerful set of tools for evaluating these kinds of novels. My own, less sophisticated, attempts are below:


William Golding wrote 'the Inheritors' in 1955 and I think it is a brilliant piece of writing. His premise was that the Neanderthals were gentle hunter-gatherers, an idea in marked contrast to the zeitgeist at the time.

He writes almost the whole book from the point of view of the Neanderthals, who do not understand the dramtic changes that are happening to them. For this reason, the plot is quite hard to follow on the first reading. A good synopsis appears here.

Golding establishes his world view from the opening lines and we can use chapter one to look at how he does his. The main protagonist is called Lok.

"Lok was running as fast as he could...Lok's feet were clever. They saw. They threw him round the displayed roots of the beeches, leapt when a puddle of water lay across the trail...Now they could hear the river that lay parallel but hidden to their left."

Golding gives Lok's feet human-like powers: they see, they hear, they guide. Further, Lok is dependent and trusts his feet to guide him. This hints at a lack of integration that I discussed previously. Instead of Lok being lord and master of his feet, Lok is subservient.

The language is enriched by close attention to the world around him (the trees were beeches, the roots were displayed, the river lay parallel), which gives a real sense that Lok is at one with his world.

Golding has his characters speak to each other in short sentences:

"Faster! Faster!"
"There, Liku."
"The log has gone away."
"One day. Perhaps two days. Not three."
"I have a picture."

There is no use of past or future or tenses or the subjunctive mood. This is consistent with the idea that Neanderthal language was less sophisticated than our own.

This causes novelists great problems, partly because dialogue is an essential way of developing the plot. It can be a succinct alternative to pages of description.

Golding overcomes this by the use of 'pictures' which can be shared between the Neanderthal family. The pictures are visually rich and seem to convey a sense of urgency and emotional mood.

In the novel, the character Ha is praised as having 'many pictures' and Lok's leadership qualities are questioned because he does not have reliable pictures.

This is a powerful plot device, which is almost irresistable. Jean Auel seems to use it extensively in the Clan of the Cave Bear. However, is there any evidence that such an ability ever existed?

I think it unlikely. Chimpanzees seem to rely on vocalisation and imitation to convey complex information. Their hunting stategies rely on vocalisations and young animals learn from the older ones. If Neanderthal genes mixed with Cro-Magnons (and that is a big if) then we might expect to see evidence of this kind of telepathy between modern humans and within ancient tribes. I think that the evidence for this is weak. Susan Blackmore's acknowledged failed search for evidence of psi should make us nervous of accepting telepathy.

[This is not the same as saying that primitives (such as Aboriginals) do not visualise and remember their landscapes as images.]

Yet, novelists need to find a way of getting their Neanderthal characters to talk with other and convey information without boring the pants off their readers.

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